Skip to main content

I really like orange safety cones. The color is awesome; they provide a safe zone for workers on streets and highways; they mean that Children’s Circle Preschool is BACK. 

The quiet halls of planning and projects become vibrant with teacher greetings and children’s voices. Parents fill the building with prayers, hopes, worries and a few tears. The children sleep, play, sing, and sometimes cry.

Earlier this summer I was told, “We can get kind of loud.”  
Also, I was warned “You might want to shut your door.” 
Finally, I was cautioned “Do not play heavy metal loud music during nap time!” However, I could not know the void the children would fill. I am reminded of the adage “You don’t know what you don’t know.” How could I know that the church was missing all of this exuberance?

After day one of preschool, I pulled into the parking lot. I walked up to the majestic building that is a testament to the glorious worship and service we do in the name of God. Then I saw the orange safety cones, and I smiled.  I remembered the noise and confusion one flight up, and I recalled the scripture: “Let the little children come unto me….”  Mark 10:14


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Easter came early this year...

Advent is about journey and anticipation and preparation. Christmas is about a gift and joy and the presence of the Living God breaking into darkness. Lent is about reflection and atonement and forgiveness. Easter is about life and victory and new life in Christ. Pentecost is about the birthday of the body of Christ, the Way, the whole church of believers. That is the church year in a nutshell.  What if they happen within the span of three weeks, or a week, or one night? This year Christmas and Easter collided. Twenty days is not long to go from confirmed diagnosis to  eternal life, but that was my father’s Advent, Lent and Christmas/Easter journey. He invited in friends, family and loved ones to witness his journey. He worked very hard to prepare my sisters and his twin brother’s daughters for a garden moment when he would die.  I have never wished for Advent nor Lent to be longer, but I wished for one more day--one more night--one more morning.  However, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And on the seventh day...

Figure 1 http://www.montreat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mountains-2-400x250-300x187.jpg We think of “Sabbath” as a time to NOT DO something.  We stop.  We wait.  We rest.  We sit.  However, that is a lot of work!  I think of Sabbath as “making a space.”  It is an active choosing, remembering, and prioritizing a holy space for God.  It is less about “letting go” and more about “leaning in” to the Breath of the Holy Spirit.  In this context Sabbath is a return to our making.  You see, in the beginning “the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). It is the breath of the Lord God that stirs dust into human.  It is the breath of the Lord God that makes us living and gives us a life.  Therefore, “Sabbath” – a time for rest and renewal, is an opportunity to reach for that breath of God which gives u...
Post a Comment
Read more

God's Hope Floats

  Friends, it is a little TOO easy to relate to the familiar Noah’s Ark story of Genesis.   However, teaching it to a multi-aged class this Sunday taught me something new.   Noah put his reminder on the ground where he would be able to touch it and to remember that even a seemingly forever-flood comes to an end.    Faithfulness means remembering that God is with us.   God put a reminder in the sky where we can remember to look up, to look around, and to remember that God’s love cannot be overcome by any kind of flood, fears, or sorrow.   It had not occurred to me, until today, that we need to build a reminder for ourselves, too. Like Noah, we know that these days will seem far away by next year.   However, we need to remember that isolation, fear, and tiredness do not last forever; God has set a promise in the sky.    So, I encourage our families to build a touchstone in your house or garden to remind us that God’s hope floats.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more